THE RELIGIOUS CURMUDGEON: THE ASCENSION

In an earlier post HERE I tried to explain the seven Sacraments to a non-christian and discovered how difficult that is with the whole concept being so much codswallop.

I promised to do another explanatory post on THE ASCENSION, THE ASSUMPTION AND THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION and, this being Easter what better time to do that than now. I'll start with the Ascension.

We don't have any houseguests due to the lockdown so I don't have any people of other faiths to explain to so the readers of this blog will have to do.

With Robert it's a matter of preaching to the converted although I suspect that he's been getting the bowdlerised story from his Bi priest Father Patrick Mary so a freshen up is necessary.

Richard, the atheist is too far-gone of course but the explanation I'll provide might rekindle some spirit in the old guy.

THE ASCENSION

The Catechism tells us this about The ascension:

Ascension, in Christian belief, the ascent of Jesus Christ into heaven on the 40th day after his Resurrection (Easter being reckoned as the first day). ... The feast has been celebrated 40 days after Easter in both Eastern and Western Christianity since the 4th century.

Which really tells us bugger all.
In all of the reading I've done I find the same old pap - Jesus ascended into heaven on the 40th day stuff. OK, but where? How? Why? What equipment was used? Who saw it? Did anyone else follow (see Assumption later)? How high did he go? Was he sighted afterwards? Did he take enough provisions? Who inherited the carpentry business? Did he kiss his mum goodbye. Did he send his step dad and mum a postcard? I fee that the catholic church is a bit lax in its explanation on this.

If I was explaining to Deepa, the Indian friend, I might have to provide a little more detail.

Deepa, after the Ressurection - oops, sorry I should have explained that, after the Roman occupiers in collusion with the Jewish authorities murdered the revolutionary Jesus and allowed his friends and family to quickly bury him, he arose from the dead. I'll have to explain this a bit more later but the gist is that the said friends and family quickly took away the unconscious Jesus and hid him in a cave for a few days until, with ministrations he woke up.
Kind of like being in a lockdown situation, he got antsy and wanted to come out of hiding, which is why, to the dismay of the friends and family he pushed open the cave door and wandered about telling everyone that he was back. People were worried that the authorities would crack down on them so Jesus had to be shushed up. They kept him away from the Romans and the Jewish council leaders for 40 days while he showed more and more alarming tendencies and was making some pretty strange pronouncements along the line of going up to heaven to meet with his father.
Poor old Joseph was further embarrassed by this as he'd not long got over the rumours that his wife Mary had been impregnated by some one else - but more of that in THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION which we'll talk about later.
No-one could understand how Jesus was going to 'get up to heaven' as he was a bit shy on the detail.
The problem was though that he was drawing attention to himself and others. One night Jesus disappeared. Gone. His followers wondered what had happened and where he'd gone. His disciples and family had a bit of a confab and came up with the story that he had ascended into heaven. Just like that. And that's what the christians believe and what the catholic church teaches children in schools through the catechism. It's kind of like the Mafia explaining where Jimmy Hoffa went or telling children that the pet dog who died went to live on a nice farm up country.